The girth alternative for mapping class groups. (Q2016101)

Summary: The girth of a finitely generated group \(G\) is defined to be the supremum of the girth of its Cayley graphs. Let \(G\) be a finitely generated subgroup of the mapping class group \(\mathrm{Mod}_\Sigma\), where \(\Sigma\) is an orientable closed surface with a finite number of punctures and with a finite number of components. We show that \(G\) is either a non-cyclic group with infinite girth or a virtually free-abelian group; these alternatives are mutually exclusive. The proof is based on a simple dynamical criterion for a finitely generated group to have infinite girth, which may be of independent interest.